


Suck the Rainbows

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: Palo Alto (2013)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Cute, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Jack Kilmer, James Franco - Freeform, M/M, Romance, in the closet, nat wolff - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy wants Fred to be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suck the Rainbows

“Tell me you love me,” Fred begged in his sleep, tears pooling in his ears as he cried out to an invisible touch. “Please, please...don’t you? I need you,” Fred went on, his hands reaching for something that obviously wasn’t there. 

His fingers fell through air. 

Teddy woke, turning on his side to look at Fred through bleary eyes. His friend was sleeping on his floor, his legs intertwined with the sheet he had kicked off at some point during the night. Fred was crying, hard. It the crocodile tears that Teddy sometimes saw his friend wear, but rather thick and desperate sobs breaking from Fred’s body. 

“Hey, man, man,” Teddy mumbled, rolling off his bed and crouching next to his friend’s trashing body. He hoped his mom wasn’t home yet or she would surely be awoken by the sounds of Fred’s limbs hitting the floor. He tried to shake his friend awake, his movements clumsy with sleep. “Fred, Fred,” he repeated, trying to hold Fred’s arm back just before it hit him in the face. 

“I can’t, please, don’t go...please,” Fred cried, his movements getting more erratic as he tried to pull himself away from Teddy, tear stained face twisted in pain as his leg hit the floor. Teddy shuddered hearing the crack; That would hurt in the morning. 

Teddy tried to level Fred up against him, pulling him into a sitting position and grabbing his hands so he couldn’t pull away. Fred was a good three or four inches taller than he was and that wasn’t working in Teddy’s favour as he tried to maintain his position. 

“Fred, damn it, stop moving and wake up!” He hissed into his friend’s ear, shaking him awake. He was surprised when it worked and Fred’s eyes sprang open, his choking sobs causing his body to shudder with the intensity. Fred was still crying, but at least he had stopped struggling. Now he was leaning limply against Teddy, his full weight pressed against Teddy’s chest. 

Teddy stayed absolutely still, his hands still wrapped around Fred’s wrists as they both sat on the floor next to the bed. Fred was crying softly, and Teddy didn’t say anything about what he had heard for the time being, just letting his friend absorb his body heat and gather himself. 

“Di..did I say anything?” Fred asked, pulling gently away from Teddy’s embrace, sitting awkwardly across from him. His knees drawn up to his chest, and his arms wrapped around them. He used the cuff of his sweatshirt to wipe the lingering tears from his eyes and cheeks, looking down at his knees as he spoke. 

“Yeah,” Teddy replied, drawing circles in the dust on his floor. He didn’t look at Fred as he spoke, not for his friend’s sake, but for his own. He would save them both the embarrassment. Crying like that was so gay. Teddy didn’t really believe in ‘so gay’, but Fred did. Teddy was used to playing along with whatever Fred did. 

“What’d I say?” Fred asked hesitantly, blushing. His gaze intensified as he zeroed in on a piece of dust clinging to his sweat pants. He didn’t move to pick it off, just letting it float off. He followed it with his eyes. 

“Nothing, really…” Teddy lied, looking away. “Let’s just go back to sleep...k?” 

Fred nodded, grabbing his things and piling them up to make a semi comfortable bed on Teddy’s floor. 

“Yeah, man, sure.” 

\------------------------------------

Teddy spent the next several days thinking about what Fred had said that night...he wanted someone to love him. He was lonely...he was sad. 

Teddy knew that Fred was depressed. It was something he had known since they had first met; Dealing was many of the many conditions on which their friendship was based. It was a delicate game to play, but it was the only one the two boys knew how to play lately. 

Teddy knew Fred had secrets and that no one was ever there for him. He knew that Emily had dumped him...Emily would sleep with anyone, but not Fred. His dad was crazy and higher than Fred himself. He didn’t have friends outside of Teddy. He didn’t have anyone. 

He had wondered for a long time if maybe Fred wasn’t telling him everything, if maybe all his rhetorical questions about sexuality and fear weren’t as rhetorical as Teddy had taken them as. Maybe they were the pills that Fred slipped to let him rest easy. If he didn’t talk about it as if it was real, it wasn’t real. 

If you close your eyes the monster goes away. 

Would it be so bad? They were friends...he thought so, anyway. It was hard to tell with Fred. He might like you, he might not. He might cling and hate you, but never talk to anyone else. He might think you’re great but never give you a second glance. 

Teddy lie on his back in his bedroom, looking at the ceiling fan as it created the endless cyclone of dust, coming full circle. He had kissed boys before...Teddy just liked the feel of skin on skin. He liked to crush. It was a past time. April was a past time that he wanted to get to know. Fred could be a pass time too…

\------------------------

Fred was asleep on Teddy’s floor again, this time though it was Teddy who was restless. He was on his side, looking at Fred over the edge of the bed. He didn’t know...he wasn’t sure.

“Fuck it,” he mumbled, rolling out of bed and onto the floor beside Fred. He shook his friend awake, leaning over him and kissing him quickly on the lips before pulling away, blushing even in the dark. Fred was staring up at him, his eyes wide in surprise, his mouth ajar. “D-do you mind?” Teddy asked, leaning in, is breath tickling Fred’s ear. 

Fred sat completely still, not sure how to process what was going on. Even the brief touch from his friend felt more natural than every late night game he had played with Emily. He didn’t know how to say it, and while he wanted to push the thoughts that were crowding his mind away he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak. It was too much…

Teddy leaned closer against his friend, pressing his lips tightly to Fred’s, waiting for some sort of reaction, whether it was permission or denial. When Fred didn’t move away he moved for him, kissing his mouth and the tip of his nose, braising his hands against the floor. It felt somehow right, to be doing this with Fred. He waited for some sort of reaction, already worrying he had gone too far, that this wasn’t what Fred wanted at all. 

His fears, however, proved to be unfounded as Fred began to move with him, slicking his tongue into Teddy’s mouth, pressing against him so that they both wound up on the floor, Fred now on top. Teddy ran his hands along Fred’s body, sending shivers up the other’s spine, kissing gently here and then there before rolling over and switching their positions as gently as he could, rubbing up against Fred’s prostrate body. 

“I love you, Fred, k?” Teddy mumble as they both climbed onto the bed, tired and confused after the wrestling that had taken place on the floor. Fred’s shirt had come off sometime during the match and Teddy found himself looking at his friend’s naked torso, surprised at how easily this pass time had passed the time. At how easily he had fallen for his friend…

Maybe it was always there, a little bit, just below the surface and waiting for someone to take it out to look at it in the light (or the dark, as the case may be). Maybe this wasn’t just some sort of fling...if Fred wanted it to be that way. 

Fred lay breathless and stunned, a light hickey mark already showing up in purple on his shoulder from where Teddy had sucked too hard. He had no idea what had just happened, and somehow it seemed to make sense. He felt more free, almost, like something had been taken off his shoulder allowing him to rest. Teddy’s words settled over him like a blanket in the cool Palo Alto spring air. 

“Teddy, would you rather be poor and kiss me or be the king of Egypt and kiss April?” Fred asked, his words sounding full as they floated easily to Teddy’s ears in the night air. His was looking at the ceiling, the fan for once was still, leaving the air smooth and uninterrupted, a perfect silence waiting to be filled. 

Teddy’s heart was still, his breathing shallow as he turned on his side to look at Fred. He noticed all the little things about Fred’s face he had never taken in before. He had shave burn over his top lip, and his dark hair fell into his brown eyes. 

“I’d rather kiss you,” Teddy mumbled, moving closer to Fred and draping his arm across his friend’s torso. “I mean it.” Teddy kissed Fred’s cheek, surprised by his own answer. He didn’t know he felt that strongly. He wasn’t sure if it was how he would feel in the morning, once there wasn’t the magic of the night cast over them, but he thought he would. He thought he might...he might like Fred. He might love him. 

“Will you say you love me?” Fred whispered. Teddy saw his eyes were shiny with tears, and his lips shivered. “I mean...if you want. Do you mean it?” 

“I love you,” Teddy repeated, the words coming easily. He had never said those words to anyone before other than his mother. He had never made a promise as big as ‘I love you,’ before. He was a kid. He had issues. Fred had issues. Maybe they could work it out...maybe the friendship which had been getting harder and harder to bear as Fred fell further and further off the edge would be safe to save. He hoped he could. Fred was his best friend…

“I love you,” he repeated, pulling Fred closer to him and letting his eyes fall closed. He could hear Fred’s heart beat against his ear, and it was calming. Suddenly he was exhausted, the restlessness he had felt earlier had deserted him. 

Fred smiled, kissing Teddy’s forehead before trying to pull away to go back to the floor, his heart beating a million miles an hour. Teddy tightened his grip around Fred, not letting him slide back down to the floor. 

“No, stay. please?” 

Fred relaxed, pulling himself back onto the bed and turning on his side so he could look at Teddy’s face. His eyes were closed. He was the same friend he had teased and laughed with and at...the same friend he had gotten into trouble a thousand times. Something had changed though...this was better than before. 

“Are we...can we, we be a thing?” Fred asked, blushing, feeling sweat on his palms. He was wondering if this was a one time thing...if Teddy was high or drunk and this wasn’t real, if he actually wanted anything to do with Fred after this night. Maybe it was a test to pull him out of his closet...maybe we he was just joking and Fred was taking it too seriously….maybe he was teasing him. “I mean, it’s fine...no strings attached,” he added as the silence that followed grew uncomfortable. 

“No, no,” Teddy said quickly, propping himself up on his arm, wondering if he had read the wrong answers between the lines. “I want to be a thing, Fred. I want to say I love you everyday...I wanna suck the colours out of rainbows with you, man,” he said, his tired speech slightly slurred with sleep. “I wanna be gay with you.”

Fred grinned, remembering the book he had defaced at the library. It was the Rainbow Sprites or something...he couldn’t really remember the title. 

“I wanna be gay with you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that this is so crappy, but eh, I like it. Sorry for the ending. 
> 
> Please review! I would love to hear what you thought of the story :)


End file.
